Magic Johnson dedicates space for World AIDS Museum in Wilton Manors

WILTON MANORS — On the 21st anniversary of his announcement that he is HIV-positive, Earvin "Magic" Johnson helped dedicate the space for the World AIDS Museum and Educational Center at Wilton Station on Thursday.

About 100 people, some museum donors and some from HIV and AIDs organizations, gathered to hear the basketball star speak.

"When I first started treatment years ago, it was 15 pills three times a day," Johnson said. "They said it was because I'm a big guy. So my height worked against me. But now, it's pills once a day."

The world has also begun to combat the stigma of HIV and AIDS, and the museum is proof of that, Johnson said.

The museum will be the first in the world dedicated solely to "telling the story of HIV and AIDS," said President Steven Sagon.

"I'm so glad we got this museum started," Johnson said. "We've all got to work together and that's the key."

The World AIDS Museum at 1201 Northeast 26th St., Suite 111, should open in early 2014, Stagon said. The board hopes the museum will grow beyond the 3,000-square-foot space in Wilton Manors.

A year ago, no one had heard of the museum, said museum board chairman Hugh Beswick. Now, the museum has 34 individual donors who gave at least $1,200 and the got a $94,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Broward, from the John C. Graves Charitable Fund.

"It's amazing how it's happening for us, now," Beswick said.

Broward County is just the place for this museum to thrive, Stagon said.

"This is the epicenter for the AIDS epidemic in America right now," he said. "And Broward County gets 12 million tourists a year. There aren't a lot of museums here, period. So in a lot of ways, there's a void here we are filling."

The museum will feature exhibits such as an "AIDS chronology," Beswick said, a multimedia timeline that walks visitors through the history of the disease.

There will also be a room set aside where people can film their own personal stories, he said. The stories will go online into a "virtual quilt" of films telling such stories.

On Thursday, the only museum exhibit on display was a large red ribbon sculpture made out the artist's empty HIV medication bottles.

That's 417 bottles worth a total of $85,000, said creator Ed Sparan of Fort Lauderdale.

"See, that's 10 years worth," Sparan said, gesturing to the three-foot-tall amalgam of bottles held together by glue, liquid rubber and paint. "Magic is 21 years. His would be twice the size."